Give banks to the people, says SPYL

THE Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) has called for a law aimed at ensuring that the ‘ownership and control of local banks revert to the local depositors’.

‘We are not calling for the nationalisation of banking institutions but for real and genuine participation, ownership and management of Namibians in the banking sector,’ SPYL Secretary Elijah Ngurare said at a press conference last Thursday.Ngurare said despite the financial sector being one of the key contributors to the gross domestic product (GDP), it has failed to reflect the demography of Namibia at decision-making levels. He added that local banks are funded by local depositors but Namibians do not participate at decision-making levels that could result in channelling the savings back into the economy to develop the country. The SPYL has observed ‘the mismatch and insensitive behaviour of the multinationals and their hand-picked executives,’ he said. He claimed that during the global banking crisis, it was not the banks’ holding companies who were ‘bailing out’ the local banks but the ‘local hardworking public’.He said the SPYL wants to see the Namibian public reject banks’ ‘cut and paste’ services developed in foreign countries and ‘forced upon’ Namibians. Ngurare did not spare the mining industry, saying that foreign-owned and stock-exchange-listed miners continue to employ foreign services at the expense of local expertise. This, he said, was ‘disenfranchising the locals from their heritage wealth’ and robbing Namibians of job opportunities. He said the SPYL demands that exploration and mining rights be tied to conditions concerning local ownership and employment of local people.tileni@namibian.com.na